Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Catastrophic Success

I'm going down the river, down to New Orleans.They tell me everything is gonna be all right,But I don't know what "all right" even means. - Bob Dylan

I'd like to write about something else, but I can barely think of anything else.

Where does Hurricane Katrina's official death count stand now? Has it broken 100 yet? Let's not kid ourselves: counting those now dead and those surely soon to die, there are likely to be thousands, even tens of thousands of fatalities.

There's a Tuesday night conversation with a paramedic in Gulf Port, Mississippi reported on Free Republic. He described scenes of bodies hanging in trees and entire families found drowned in their homes. When told the official number of dead, "he got very quiet," then said "dude, we are picking up 30 at a time...thousands are dead. Why aren't they saying...? I guess I better shut up then - don't give my name."

Perhaps they'll be counted like the dead of Iraq, and we'll never know the truth, only believe it.

The magnitude of the devastation, and the rapidly deteriorating situation in New Orleans, seems finally to be dawning on the corporate media. Still, the lead story too often is "looting," like it too often isn't when the looters are CEOs stealing the necessities of someone else's life. We ought to remember Donald Rumsfeld's analysis of the tearing of another city's social fabric: "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over and over and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it 20 times and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases?'"

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is "very upset" an attempt to plug the breach in the levee was called off, and doesn't know by whom: "He said the sandbags were ready and all the helicopter had to do was 'show up'.... He was assured that officials had a plan and a timeline to drop the sandbags on the levee breach." He is still not sure who gave the order to cancel it. At another Press Conference, Nagin complained about being unable to reach the White House, as the White House said they were in constant communication, and FEMA representatives claimed everything were under control.

Since 2003, Washington has been diverting funds intended for the repair of the New Orleans' levee system and pouring them into the breach of Iraq. Nearly half of Louisiana's National Guard are also in Iraq, I suppose to fight the hurricane over there so we don't have to fight it over here. Instead of the protection of the Guard, the Gulf Coast is falling under the authority of Northern Command ("Defending the Homeland is Job #1") which, since it's creation in 2002, has been a violation of the spirit and the law of the Posse Comitatus Act. But nevermind that now, since martial law has made land in New Orleans.

There is something unnatural about this. I don't mean to suggest that the hurricane was driven by HAARP or scalar waves, though I could. Because as I've said before, we are entering a period of human history - the final period, if we don't watch ourselves - in which our speaking of the natural world means little more than a nostalgic conceit. That which used to be expressly "Acts of God" are being folded into the mission of the US military. Hurricanes are steered by winds in the upper atmosphere, and HAARP gives the Pentagon "strategic control over the upper atmosphere." Are we crazy for suggesting it's possible, or are they crazy for making it possible?

What I mean here by unnatural is both the half-measured response of federal authorities and the bizarre and inappropriate response of Bush.

Consider a President with an approval rating edging into the mid-30s. What has he been doing this week? Playing golf. Speaking before another military audience about the "War on Terror," suggesting a specious link between 9/11 and Iraq and comparing himself to Franklin Roosevelt. Visiting the South West. Posing with a huge cake and licking his fingers. Pretending to play the guitar. Getting on with his life, then cutting his month-long "working vacation" short by 24 hours. (And what has Dick Cheney been doing? When no one seems to know, I worry.)

Perhaps more disturbing than the evident lack of serious attention to the worst disaster - natural or otherwise - in modern American history is that, even as Bush's numbers bottom out, the White House is not compelled to make a serious effort to appear as though it gives a damn. Not only don't they care, but they no longer need to be seen to care. And that seems to me like another remarkable catastrophic success story.

1287 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Stephanie Abrams, of the Weather Channel, standing next to Jim Cantore, could not stop repeating that the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Lousianna would be that shiney penny once again.....that they would rebuild,,,,and things would return to normal.

I wanted to reach through the television set, or shoot it like Elvis, and shake her vigorously for her idiocy.

I wanted to ask her to what "Normalcy" was she referring. If you look at the Big Picture, the confluence of events which led to this calamity, a calamity that makes 9/11 pale in comparison (but you won't hear the media say as much) are still omnipresent, and they're not going away.

Stephanie, ever the eternal optimist, I suppose, doesn't want to acknowledge the Dark Side, and I find her willful ignorance beyond nauseating.

I have heard some say they should rebuild New Orleans because they have such fond memories of the City. Some have honeymooned there, others have frequented it for other such pleasures. They want their Beignets from Cafe du Monde and their Muffalettas from Napoleans. Amidst the ensuing chaos that is a precursor of much worse things to come, people want their "stuff," and, I suppose, the "stuff" is the Normalcy to which Stephanie appeals.

A valid question is whether, or not, New Orleans should be built. I don't believe it should, but many resolutely think it should, because that's what you do, you know, you rebuild. You don't let little things like Cat 5 Hurricanes stand in the way of progress, instead you make assumed progress stand in the wat of Cat 5 Hurricanes.

Even ants have the good sense to rebuild elsewhere. Not humans.....or not Americans. Nope, humans will step in their own shit, repeatedly. It's as though we're programmed.

It can no longer be business as usual. The paradigm has to shift. If America continues to apply archaic principles to contemporary issues, failure can be the only outcome.

I remember the debate in Pulp Fiction about Pigs and Dogs, and Samuel Jackson boasted that "at least dogs disregard their own feces." Ironically, in a metaphoric sense, humans don't have the good sense to disregard their own feces. We have wallowed in it for the entirety of our tainted presence here on Planet Earth, and I'm certain, when it's all said and done, we will suffocate in it as a species.

You know nothing like a lil distraction from the horror's in Iraq like another man made diseaster in their own back yard. I agree with you on the HAARP piece. I have studied some of Eastlunds work and it does not surprise me what the "powers that be" are doing with it. Tesla discovered the existance of the Schuman cavity and subsequent experiments convinced him that mucking with the weather is a mistake.

It is NOT just America that will suffer, nor that is making mistakes on a grand scale, of this I am certain.

About America:What in the hell do we do about Bush? Complaining isn't going to change the fact that he's running our damn country!! It's not like lil' ol' me can go and have his ass pulled out of office. Uh, nope, despite the whole "if all of you worked together" theory. Because it is obvious WE won't/don't/can't work together, or he'd be gone already.It's a REAL frustration... and I frankly don't know what to do with those feelings. I can say I am honestly scared to death, freaked out, and knowing there's nowhere to go to escape "his" path, it's worse than a hurricaine...So if it's "fight or flight"... what are the real options to escape the destruction of Hurricaine Bush?

I read somewhere a posting by a person who had spoken with his military friend who had returned briefly from Iraq who said his friend told him that Iraq seemed like a mere training exercise for something even bigger.

I remember reading about the biometrics, including retinal scanners, which were required of any citizens re-entering Fallujah through the controlled gates following the U.S. massacre there.

I think there was absolutely a strong possibility that they were going to take the Ft. Monroe nuke drill live, and I think we in the blogosphere or whatever either collectively stopped it through widespread awareness of the plan, or did exactly what they thought we'd do when confronted with such a scenario, or both. Either way, it was rendered inappropriate or unnecessary to take the drill live. I personally think we created just enough steam to make them worry about whether they could still hold martial law together without uprising following such an event, if for no other reason than the fact that the Internet as a whole, an entirely decentralized network, can simply route around tyrrany, and word would spread very quickly.

I think they saw a golden opportunity with this hurricane as it was developing, and pounced on it via HAARP or who-cares-what, and fed it electromagnetically as they steered it right into New Orleans. I think some boy scout somewhere jogged it over in the 11th hour to try to minimize the damage once they realized what was up. I think we owe them much gratitude. But enough "wild" speculation...

My point is that they couldn't do the big thing they wanted to do in Charleston, so they "settled" for the next best thing -- they still got to wipe out a coastal city with a critical trade port, justified another likely-permanent spike in the price of oil, got to kill a great many more "useless eaters" than on 9/11, and got to experiment with martial law stadium internment on a large scale. The next several days will be instructive for us to this end, but you can bet your ass it's just as instructive for them, if not more. They're finding out what we'll put up with.

Before I went to bed last night, I switched from a DVD I was watching to the cable feed in order to "park" our entertainment center for the night at a predictable spot for my SO to pick up in the morning if she wants to watch stuff while she wakes up. It's a routine. Anyway, the cable was tuned to ABC, and the first thing I saw was some full-screen hurricane coverage graphic. I believe it was a teaser. Anyway, it was replaced quickly by a teaser for a news package to air on tomorrow night's (well, tonight's) evening news broadcast, and guess what the topic was... I can't even put words to screen to describe exactly what I saw, but it was a TOTAL SCARE JOB on the topic of imminent, certain domestic nuclear terror and how to prepare, what to do when it happens (distinctly not "if"), and what to expect. It was very clearly intended to scare the shit out of poor, sleepy Joe Sixpack, may he barely rest between nightmares in frightful, masochistic anticipation of tomorrow night's evening news indoctrination.

Looks like they're still counting on making this happen as soon as they can wrap their slimy lizard fingers around the right moment, and it looks like they're working out the "management" procedures right now in Afghanistan, Iraq and New Orleans. Where next?

Is our fever pitch of blog-style coverage of their evil plans going to be enough to keep them at bay until they slip and lose their footing, tumbling over the side of the cliff of history leaving all the good guys to stand upon the edge and watch for the little cartoonish "poof" of dust and dirt that signals the end of tyrrany?

Look, weather control conspiracy is not a spice you add to the conversation every time it rains. It is not established that the Air Force can control the weather to any significant level; sure chemtrails are real, and probably used to reflect sunlight amongst other side effects. Sure, the Air Force has stated they WISH they can control the weather.

This hurricane was fueled by hot waters in the gulf. The energies are massive, natural, and fueled by global warming which is likely anthropogenic in nature -

Nagin says the city is "filling up like a bowl", FEMA says "I don't want to alarm anyone that New Orleans is filling up like a bowl," Michael Brown, FEMA's director, said. "That isn't happening."

Oh, okay. but it will be at least a month for before anyone can even think about returning to this, let's say, concave plate. Maybe's it's filling up more like a pasty.

I just need to know how this affects football season, really. And yes, shrubageddon, what about my chicory coffee and those charming darkies with their brass band parades? What about MY picture of New Orleans in which a hurricane is just a drink I can quaff on the streets?

Such a horrific disaster is unfolding in the Gulf States - I'm reminded of Beckett and the recurring phrase from Godot "what is to be done?" The only answer ever proffered was "Kill yourself, masturbate, or just go on".

Anonymous said... "To all those proposing HAARP and weather control..."I appreciate your opinion and yes we can get carried away with all sorts of conspiratorial scenarios. However, there is a gentlemen named Dan Eden you should maybe google. Now is Dan off his rocker regarding what he saw in Alaska and the fact that the locals refer to the HAARP installation as "the Heater" I don't know but the way weather has been behaving lately it should cause pause for speculation.Please google Dr. Eastlund and check out his opinions on what he designed.CheersLucky

I remember when hurrican Charley and company hit Florida last year, there were pictures circulated at Rumor Mill News and Rense.com that supposedly showed refrigerator trucks filled with body bags stuffed with dead migrant workers. There were also reports from Florida National Guardsmen that the fatalities were far in excess of the official death tolls. This is nothing new.

As far as the 'warm waters of the Gulf' being the magic Hurrican catalyst, I'm curious to know what the temperature differentials are to make this so. How much hotter is the Gulf of Mexico these days as opposed to say 1996 when I moved to Florida and there were no hurricanes in the neighborhood?

What sickens me is the incessant pictures of black looters in New Orleans, as if only colored people are capable of being desperate to survive or wanton thieves. And yes, I'll bet FEMA called off the helicopter to repair the levees, but that fact will go reported in page 52B of the New York Times in about three or four months. But of course, there is only the 'liberal media,' right?

At the time Andrew struck, South Dade was inhabited by a large population of Mexican illegal immigrants. The United States Department of Immigration was fully aware of their presence but quietly turned its back on the situation, knowing full well that South Dade farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops without the help of the Mexican illegals. The heavily populated migrant camps were situated at the edge of the Florida Everglades. The people who lived there vanished without a trace during that fated night. Many bodies were found way out in the Everglades.

When I lectured at the Clearwater Convention in Florida in 1999, a man in the audience stood up and introduced himself as Chief Petty Officer Roy Howard. He proceeded to address the audience with this exact statement, which is now a matter of public record:

Just for your information, I was called up to active duty after hurricane Andrew went through South Dade County. I spent nine weeks down there. Now I will certify for the benefit of our audience here that the death figures that were officially published are totally inaccurate. According to the information which I received from my own sources within the National Guard, the figure I was quoted when I was down there was 5,280-something. And they were quietly disposed of in incinerators that were hurriedly put together by both the National Guard and FEMA...

As the Chief Petty Officer stated, "5,280-something" bodies were confiscated by the United States National Guard. In addition to this, the Coast Guard independently confiscated "1,500 bodies" from the lakes and surrounding waters. Neither one of these figures embraces the number of dead bodies confiscated by other branches of federal and state government directly involved in the body pick-up operation. This leaves the number of dead confiscated by various US authorities in South Dade still unknown.

The total number who died during hurricane Andrew is obviously staggering, yet whenever the "official death toll" is mentioned in the media, a figure of anywhere between 15 and 59 is quoted. The population of the 21 communities annihilated by Andrew's eye-wall had been officially recorded by the Dade County Census Bureau as 415,151 before Andrew struck.

...

This may sound strange but, regardless, it is the truth. Today, in the year 2001, there still remain three ongoing tragedies created by hurricane Andrew cover-ups--tragedies which remain unbearable for the survivors to live with.

The first tragedy is the horrifying fact that the bodies of our loved ones were intentionally confiscated from us by our own government and then so inhumanely disposed of. Without graves, or some kind of memorial erected in their memory, we have no hope of reaching closure.

The second tragedy is the impact the cover-ups had in downplaying, dismissing and ignoring our horrendous suffering.

And the third tragedy is the great number of Andrew survivors who were inevitably forced to join the ranks of approximately 10 million other homeless Americans struggling to stay alive on the streets. With 10 million Americans homeless, and another 32 million Americans going to sleep hungry each night, the United States Government can't truthfully claim to be a government for all the people.

Maybe it's just me, but I honestly thought the world learned a lesson from the Nuremberg trials in Germany: "Evil can only be defined as absence of empathy..."

I can't believe I saw that picture of doughhead dubya trying to play that flat top. He's sooooo transparent and shallow it's amazing. Why in hell is he not at least onsite in New Orleans talking to those poor folks. Geez what a complete failure.

WOW. Nothing like being called rankly stupid; a.k.a. the face of evil. If you can't join 'um, insult 'um.

I can only surmise that this "anon" person is actually a high up member of the Air Force (thus, the need to protect his/her identity), and is speaking from this position. If in fact this is the case, I personally apologize for upsetting your delicate position within "our" military. I certainly would not want you compromising your oaths and promises to our country by agreeing that something is totally screwed up here in the overall big picture.

I think I would be rankly stupid if I just sat back and swallowed every mouthful of bullshit the media and our government spoons to us...of course, I suppose it would be easier to question nothing and click those happy little blinders in place, all the while secretly praying there are no 'boogie men' under my bed.

"He said the sandbags were ready and all the helicopter had to do was 'show up'.... He was assured that officials had a plan and a timeline to drop the sandbags on the levee breach."

This gives new meaning to the phrase "to be sandbagged."

From the Professional Wrestler's Dictionary:"Sandbag, to not cooperate with a throw."

From Houghton Miflin:Slang

1. To treat severely or unjustly. 2. To force by crude means; coerce: sandbagged us into cleaning up their mess. 3. To downplay or misrepresent one's ability in a game or activity in order to deceive (someone), especially in gambling: sandbagged the pool player by playing poorly in the first game when stakes were low.

"If you didn’t see the movie (when it aired in mid-June), here it is in a nutshell: a category four hurricane destroys a vital pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico...panic sweeps of the nation...speculation drives the price of crude higher and higher...U.S. government turns to Saudi Arabia for oil...Saudi extremists commit terrorist attacks, killing 300 American oil workers...America sends troops to Saudi Arabia...still major lines at gas stations...Americans begin to turn against each other...the U.S. government decides to turn to Russia for oil...the Russians help in return for an investment in the upgrade of their pipelines...oil falls from it’s high of $153 a barrel down to around $77...and all is right with the world."

Weather control...whatever. Fact is, for billions of years nature has been trimming the herd. Always has, always will. Build your house on a coastal cliff and you may well lose it in a mudslide or an earthquake. Build a cabin a hundred yards from the Missouri River in Omaha, you'll have a hard time finding insurance because the river floods almost every spring. Build an enormous city in the arid southwest and you will inevitably have power and water shortages. Build your city next to Mt. Vesuvius and expect some hot ash from time to time. Build your city in a bowl on a coast that every year goes through "hurricane season," and expect that eventually your city will be hit by a great big hurricane. Look at the topography and climatology of New Orleans: a couple of lakes that sit above the city and a huge potential for violent storms. Levee or no levee, the only real shock is that this didn't happen sooner. I mean Jesus, people, what is so hard to grasp about that? It is so typically arrogant to assume that we can just plop ourselves down in any given environment and be divinely entitled to immunity from all destructive natural forces. It is that same arrogance that builds Hummer trails in a national forest and plows up prairie to build a golf course in the Sandhills. It's like the people who build homes in the everglades and then complain that a gator killed their dog or their kid. Is it sad that so many people died in a big storm? Absolutely. Is it a moral issue? Absolutely not. Here's a story, folks, with a couple of billion years of supporting evidence: You have no right to life. Hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis and plagues and sinkholes and monsoons and lightning and volcanoes and blizzards and hard freezes and floods and wildfires and glare ice on the roads have been killing things since there were things to be killed. They will Never, ever, ever stop. So build levees and cut firebreaks and get immunizations; fight like hell to survive because it is a biological imperative to do so. Realize, however, that these measures(however technologically advanced)will fail, as they have routinely failed through three million years of hominid evolution.

Well, I for one do believe Strategic Oil Reserves are being tapped, but I'd like to find out how I, personally, can take Mr. Chavez up on his kind offer of assistance. Maybe it's time to learn spanish and head southleft.

Well, if the government could control the weather, I’m sure they’d let us know. Also, some of us are assuming control of the weather means “complete” control of the weather. Can any of us be 100% sure that the genesis of this hurricane was natural or for that matter can we be sure it was intentionally created by the “ptb’s”? One aspect that bears paramountcy is W’s removal of funds for Army Corps of Eng. for levees in New Orleans for the oh so lucrative and venal efforts in Iraq. Yes when you build cities below sea-level you may suffer nature’s wrath. There is also the obvious fact that engineering can and should be able to divert, or at least countermand, the effects of a given natural phenomenon. There must be thousands of news pieces, even amongst the mass media, about pending disaster in lowlands such as Louisiana. Anyone ever heard of a city called Venice? Have you see the abundant measures and methods that the Italian government has taken to quell the dangers imposed by rising waters? I guess engineering on behalf of millions of impoverished American’s in a country with assets that prodigiously overshadow those of Italy is just too much to ask for. I can’t help thinking about the “nuclear drill goes live” threat of weeks before and that chatter on the internet may have helped to extinguish this impending horror. This is speculation, but this “natural” disaster, well let’s just say W has one hell of a distraction for the public to deal with, good magicians always do.

just try to grasp the effect. that shot of Bush on air guitar and the link with HAARP which I'd dubbed 'the amazing musical instrument' a while back.nothing to see here. move along folks.but it's about more than just one man or one techno-gadget, or any gadget at all. it's a whole infrastructure. a whole system. I still retain my bemusement for the human's apparent subjective predilection to place oneself outside of one's context or environment. likewise, with the assertion, even for those who are aware of it, that HAARP is mostly about weather contol, whilst they relax on the lounge absent-mindedly flicking channels. do you know when someone's playing you?

Regardless of which crooked politicians or corporations (and I believe as strongly as y'all that there are many) would profit from it, I would love to see the price of gas go up to $5 or even $10 bucks a gallon. Maybe that would force more fat ass Americans to get out of their cars and kiss the sweet ground upon which they walk. People lament our enormous consumption of fossil fuels and the subsequent negative environmental effects (which are all too real), but then they piss and cry when said fossil fuels are more expensive and difficult to obtain. The real enemies of meaningful social and environmental progress are not our Asshole-in-Chief or the predatory oil comapnies. It's all Americans who think they have a god-given right to cheap petroleum. But, of course, altering our lifestyle to adapt to our environment is far too degrading and humble for us, we who have the divine spark of the creator in our collective breast. It's much, much easier to just bitch about gas prices. Forest for the trees, people, forest for the trees.

_What in the hell do we do about Bush? Complaining isn't going to change the fact that he's running our damn country!! It's not like lil' ol' me can go and have his ass pulled out of office. Uh, nope, despite the whole "if all of you worked together" theory. Because it is obvious WE won't/don't/can't work together, or he'd be gone already.It's a REAL frustration... and I frankly don't know what to do with those feelings._

I can totally relate. Last month, I melted down here, due to a ridiculously contentious and argumentative individual claiming to be "informing America" when it seemed to me she was spending a little too much time tearing apart other people -- their reading habits, belief systems, etc., etc. After a single, bitter exchange, I blew up, left in a huff, and refused to return. Of course, here I am again. And I hope I was wrong about that person. But the aggravation I felt about the nitpicking remains.

Now, I am cautious about posting around here, preferring, instead, to voice my opinions in my own blog. I am not ashamed to say I don't like confrontational people - at least not the kind who do it for sport. It wastes energy - energy we could be using to find a way out. I don't think contention itself is wrong, or even bad, but when it serves no purpose except the expression of self-righteous judgmentalism, it is bad for everyone. (I had to banish my Red State Sister from my life due to this very concern.)

Back to your comment, Frustrated, I don't know what we're going to do with Bush. I grow more worried every day. The Dems are not the answer. They're not going to do anything. Too many are compromised, or lack the spine to stand up to Der Chimper. I've said to my friends, confidentially, of course, that revolution is the only way for us. That said, it is a theoretical premise. I would be in violation of the law if I came out and said, Let's revolt. So I do not. I'm too old to be scooped up by HS.

Shrubageddon said...

_It can no longer be business as usual. The paradigm has to shift. If America continues to apply archaic principles to contemporary issues, failure can be the only outcome._

Well said! It has a lot to do with the comfort control level we've come to enjoy for so long.

My mother used to tell me about The Great Depression, and I have many pages of typed notes from recollected conversations. They serve as a reminder of what life was like in the 1930s. Here's a small bit: "Babe, we were hungry. Many days, all we ate was turnips and homemade jam. The boys (her brothers) did what they could, raiding the neighbor's gardens for extra food. (Tomatoes being a much sought-after luxury). Dad rode freight trains around the country, looking for work. We never knew when he'd be back. Ma always said we only had each other. You kids don't know what hard times are like." My mother's greatest fear was hunger. She hoarded food and held a life-long anxiety about not having enough to go around. Hunger is a great teacher. Most of us have never known hunger - not on the level my mother did. I wonder if our time is coming.

Just one thing about weird coincidences. Remember last month, Jeff wrote about the white trucks in and around TX? Someone said FEMA was planning for something big? Well, it happened. To me, that gives a lot of credence to concerns about weather tweaking. Obviously, if they knew it was coming, there ain't nothing natural about Katrina.

Well, I've got nothing much else to say except how sad I am. I've been lighting candles and offering up prayer petitions since Saturday evening. With everything going on in my life right now, I'm exhausted. I'm also disconsolate about the future. Yet, I'm terribly glad I am alive to write about these things. Others are not so lucky.

Col Quisp:cool insight on the term 'sandbagging'. Now the question is, will a half million New Orleansians shrug their shoulders about FEMA's sandbag job. Maybe FEMA's whole purpose is to be one big sandbag operation, to prevent state and local organizations from operating, or to even eliminate them.

Just a little FYI in re the last few comments:Thomas, you seem to be a very passionate person in your stance - this is honorable. However, I haven't driven my car in over a month, and frankly, I hate walking - not because I am a fat ass lazy american, but because I have osteoarthritis and it hurts sometimes, badly. Thus, the whole reason why I bought a USED vehicle, no radio, a little A/C, and emission controlled (you should be happy to know).I am not a tree hugger, but I would definately chain myself to one if I thought it was a cause to fight for with my life. Who would really give a shit if I died for a tree? Would my family be proud of me, and feel some closure on their loss?I waste little in my life. Ever.

Morgan Wolf:Touche.Although I HAVE known that sort of hunger, my mother,brother and I lived in an abandoned "meat shack" (where they cured meat after it was cut from the animal). We ate fish we could manage to steal from a private pond, and caught wild rabbits when our traps would hold. We drank water from a far off neighboring farm's outside tap. There were many many nights when I really thought I would die of hunger, and prayed to.It was tough as hell, but I lived.I ended up with health problems from the lack of nutrition, and eating disorders from the fear of going hungry. These things DO happen to people in THIS time, in THIS era. People DO go hungry, right next door to you possibly.I am a young person, born in the 60's... so it's not a "by-gone era" experience.

(I will definately check out your blog - :) )

Tronicus:"will a half million New Orleansians shrug their shoulders about FEMA's sandbag job."

Well, what else can they do? It would appear that they are a little preoccupied with life altering issues right now... and those that are still alive (do the count on the ones who haven't left their attics yet, or ever will), may not have very much energy left to fight back with. How lucky our good ol boys are to have that sort of stress induced weakness in the survivors of the hurricane.Too bad we can never catch them (the GOB's) with their dead mother[s] in their arms while faced with us IN THEIR FACE renigging on our promises we told them that would help salvage the remnants of their life.

Can anyone imagine if the Superdome was filled with NFL Superbowl players and paying fans? This drama is unfolding in a similar manner to the 911 experience. For example, the building #7 just collapsing after not being struck by any thing, yet most people are in a sort of trance and watch it unfold. I only have a $5 black&white TV (to protect the innocent in our house) and it has poor reception- but when I saw all those poor,old black people being herded to the Superdome I absolutely knew we were in for big trouble, all of us. Don't know what happened to the helicopters which were to deliver sand??? For God's sake, do not believe it! Can't get those people out? Please!!! No communication ability? No, I guess not. I saw the unrestrained glee in the eyes of the TV talkers. This is the same type of mass hypnosis as 911-no sense quibbling about the cause-don't fall for it. The human sacrifices in this tragedy are cheifly the weakest members of our country, and those simply out of luck. There is no doubt that this will result in some "conspiracy theories" coming to evil fruition. May God have mercy on us.

"Well, if the government could control the weather, I’m sure they’d let us know. "

Sure, just like they let us know about the Pentagon Papers? Or about where that $1.1 trillion was unaccounted for in the last Pentagon audit went? Get a grip, man! Nobody except a rotten poker player gives away their best cards!

If word ever got out that this government can in fact manipulate the weather, every nuclear armed nation that ever had a drought would start lobbing nukes at us. It would be impossible to prove we DIDN'T use that technology for that purpose.

Just like Israel's nuclear stockpile, which is both known but unoficially acknowledged, so too will be any weather modification technology this government fields.

I believe Tom Bearden's little stories about the Yakuza and the KGB collaborating to nix our weather is an elaborate disinformation scheme to divert attention from the fact that out own government regularly expreiments on its own citizens without their consent or knowledge.

If anything is happening on these shores, you can bet your ass they would know about it. Conversely, if the governmetn ever thought it was being threatened by an outside force, you can be sure there would be credible retaliation.

Neither George Bush nor anyone else in his gang of thugs has been held accountable for any of the many crimes of his presidency. We know that funds were withheld from the Corps of Engineers that might have corrected the weaknesses of the levees. But the mainstream media will never mention that...or anything similar.

It's time to do something. Even in fantasy, - so attention is drawn to the travesty.

Maybe this whole hurricane and the aftermath will be used as an excuse when the nation goes bankrupt. The excuse before could have been "terrorism" but this "natural disaster" could now be it, and much easier for Joe Sixpack to swallow - never mind the economy was headed for catrastophe before either Katrina or 911. And someone once said that the last action of a desperate bunch of thugs in power is to loot the Treasury. There's been a lot of looting going on lately, no?

"..persistent rumors among residents that the levee had been intentionally destroyed Monday evening"

Sure, why not? I don't believe the bs about HAARP -- I mean, c'mon, it's hurricane season for chrissake -- but I wouldn't put it past the powers that be to capitalize on this natural disaster. Think of all that groovy real estate that can now be seized under expanded powers of eminent domain! Not to mention culling the herd of a few thousand useless eaters. What's not to like about it?

"This whole show was pure unadultrated propaganda. It was like they were conditioning people for an oil crisis. The strangest part was they actually put a date on it, being this year. Not two or three years, or even ten, down the road, no, this happens only months away from now. It was the strangest show I've ever seen."

“It’s devastating,” POTUS said as he watched, according to Scott McClellan. “It’s got to be doubly devastating on the ground.” McClellan said POTUS remained quiet through most of the flyover, pointing out various signs of destruction along with Karl Rove, J.D. Crouch and one of the pilots.

Of course POTUS would not deign to soil his feet on the ground. Have you noticed he does not like to step off of paved areas? I think this was pointed out by Michael Moore.

Anyway, my main point is that in the rest of the story of the flyover, this is reported:

Just prior to the flyover, POTUS took a call from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who expressed condolences on the loss of life and damage from the hurricane. “The king offered Saudi Arabia’s support,” McClellan said. He said the two did not discuss any increase in oil production by Saudi Arabia, but noted that he had read reports suggesting the Saudis were preparing to help stabilize oil markets. Filed By:Peter BakerThe Washington Post

This seems to parallel the movie that others have mentioned here (the Oil Storm). Weird

In his statement earlier today, GWB said: To the people of America, I just wanna tell ya' , were gonna find this Katrina, and hunt her down! Any one we find helping Katrina, or haboring Katrina, Were gonna kill you, too! Your'e either with us..... or with Katrina

This stuff hurts to read. Not just these interesting & gloomy comments, of course, but the whole story. I was born and raised in New Orleans -- born right after Betsy struck, in fact -- and that city is in my blood. Haven't been back in five years. My mom just had a reunion with her NOLA high-school friends in Biloxi and Gulfport, and was happy to tell me how "fancy" the gulf-shore region of Mississippi had become. It was a bit more humble when we took our 3-day weekends there, often on Dauphin Island (which I believe is mostly gone).

The death toll is horrific, and I agree that we won't know the real numbers for a long time ... long after Katrina has fallen off the News Event ladder and only those stuck there (and the ghosts of their neighbors and family) are left to deal with the horror.

In our complex era, it would be dumb for us to not bring up the darkest possible motives & machinery. But it is hurricane season, and New Orleans was born & bred fighting and suffering these savage storms. And of course the past provides even worse examples: The great hurricane that struck Galveston (another childhood home of mine, briefly), where some 8,000 people perished in the year 1900.

That said, the first major breach occurred along a brand-new hurricane-proofed levee on that canal coming from Lake Pontchartrain. The lake -- actually a piece of the Gulf with a narrow mouth leading to the larger Gulf of Mexico -- was the most dangerous part of the storm's hit. The mythological Tidal Wave coming up the Mississippi and flooding the crescent part of town wasn't much of a factor here, as the storm surge pushed most of the water into Pontchartrain.

I know little about Ray Nagin, the current mayor, other than he came from a business / non-political background and was a Republican voter before his run for the mayor's office. In New Orleans, not being bred in the Democratic / Union machine is a big plus if you plan to try to clean the corruption from that ancient Napoleonic bureaucracy. I've got no idea how well he did, until the Disaster. But his apparent fury over the "dropped" orders to fill that levee with 3,000-lb. sandbags ... it sure seems honest. And the excuses from the Army Corps of Engineers seem heartless, at best. (Side note: The Army Corps sacked its top civilian executive last week, because the exec complained about the billions shoveled to Halliburton on no-bid crooked contracts.)

At worst, the Army Corps "sandbagged" plans suggest the city was going to be taken out, just as the NOAA and other authorities told us all with such certainty on Sunday night. On one hand, it's a miracle that most of the city residents did take the threat seriously and got out of town, despite the "letdown" of Monday's hit. On the red right hand, however, it has been a remarkably efficient way to clean out the persistent ghetto problem -- the Ninth Ward was hit first and hardest, and many thousands will be found dead there, eventually -- while allowing property owners to rebuild with the insurance payouts and FEMA loans long after the poorest have settled in other areas of the southeast.

Remember, New Orleans had a 28% poverty rate, and that's probably not as bad as the truth. There was outrage early this week when the national poverty rate approached 13%. (As there should be.)

Finally, for you RI boarders who noticed how happy the Cable News seems to be when reporting the "looting," here's a little example you may enjoy.

Perhaps the movies are meant as previews for several possible purposes. Some, but not all, of which may be:

1) a tool of psychological warfare against both foreign and domestic targets.

2) pre-conditioning of the public mind, much like hypnotic suggestion. The masses are pre-programmed and pre-scripted as to the proper expectations and responses. Thereby reducing the tendency for dangerous thinking and questioning, and purchasing public complacency and compliance.

3) Convincing the gullible that a fateful, holistic universe mystically embeds prophecies into movies. For the majority of the unthinking masses, the boundary between media and reality is already blurred as it is. Thus, Hollywood becomes the oracle. xx

Well, I live in northern Mississippi now, but I got my doctorate in LSU. I certainly hope that these Cajuns and other assorted Louisianans take out their wrath on the Federal government, instead of on their local government. Massive disasters do change the course of this country's history--witness the 1927 levee breach in the Delta (Mississippi), which left hundreds of thousands homeless--they hearded black people onto the Greenville levee and kept them their at gunpoint. Black people gave up on the MS Valley and swamped the northern cities by the hundreds of thousands. Thousands died here in the Delta, but the official death toll was much lower. Herbert Hoover uswed the disaster to catapult himself to national prominence and the presidency. When the slow moving floodwaters (metal waters of the unusually wet prior winter) finally reached New Orleans, the city essentially forced the poor outlying parished to accept a levee blow out, to save NO. They promised to pay, but to this day NO has never paid them for blowing out the levees. As a result of the 1927 flood, the Corps of Engineers came about and was charged with creating a unified levee (before that, levees had been locally run, and varied in size). We decided we could conquer nature. Read a book by John McPhee by that title, and also read "Rising Tide."

Anyway, the wealthy New Orleanians, and the insurance companies, and the banks, and the Cosa Nostra, and hte oil industry, and the casino industry, have had a merry old time keeping Louisiana and southern Mississippi at third world-status (hell, Gulfport and New Orleans were also based on banana republic money--as a result, over 100,000 Hondurans live/d in New Orleans, many having suffered through 1998's Hurricane Mitch down there.) Largest single concentration of poverty in the US, worst schools, most corrupt and brutal police force--NO is a great place, and an incredibly vibrant culture, but it's the nation's waste basket. Look at all the links to the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, and all the rest.

On top of all that, the levees being built higher after 1927 eventually resulted in 'starvation' and death of the coastal wetlands that buffer New Orleans from the sea. There's a dead zone in the Gulf, saline infiltration, a bird's foot Delta, and basically an all-around environmental disaster. Bienville founded New Orleans on the only spot that wasn't total swamp at the time, and lo and behold the French Quarter is still dry! The French weren't dumb, but it's raw, unadulterated greed in the 20th century that has made the city what it is today, or was.

At hurricane.lsu.edu, you can read and look at maps of ALL the long-predicted scenarios for destruction of New Orleans--I'm a geographer, and I was taught this in my various first undergraduate class years ago. It's the classic case study for humans' maladaptation to nature, and the "big one" was coming sooner or later.

Whether "tweaked" or not by the criminals in power (and we KNOW what needs to be done to them--it's being said quite openly here, by white people, even in Mississippi), this Hurricane will serve as the PERFECT storm for them to justify ANYTHING they want to do to oil. The real reasons will never have to be explained--blame it on China and on Katrina.

as a legislative intern during law school, I had access to the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service ands one of the ealriest databases for the US government legislative branch.

I pulled up and ordered many reports, including weather manipulation.

At the July 4th, 1976 Bicentennial protests in Philadelphia I watched as I marched as helicopters and small planes seeded the clouds for a torrential downpour.

In around 1979-80 there was a TREATY outlawing weather manipuylation for "military" purposes which the US signed as did many other nations.

But what treaty have the Bushes ever honored. Look at the internatiuonal court of justice or the UN or Kyoto or small nukes or the geneva convention. The BFEE has said fuck the world regarding all of these.

Weather manipulation was a reality 25 years ago and longer (remember swine flu dumped in the clouds over Cuba that blewback over the US?)

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that, like EMP weapons in the death of Wellstone, weahter manipulation is POSSIBLE in this instance.

If you beliueve in MIHOP for 9-11 you can believe in MIHOP for New Orleans 8-30-05.

Of COURSE technology exists to alter and affect the weather.

COULD it have happened here in this case?

I believe it COULD have.

But for the poster above and others who said, cmon already its hurricane season - and the idea of manipulating the weather is not even feasible: you are dead wrong.

As a former MIT physics jock I have a strong hunch that there really is such a thing as scalar waves, and that they really have been weaponized. It's unfortunate that almost all the information available tracks back to Tom Bearden, who clearly spouts nonsense at times and is something of a huckster.

Don't know if anyone considers Vialls to be more reliable (or for that matter whether he was truly an independent source or simply adopted Bearden's ideas), but he described scalar-EM weapons in considerable detail, albeit somewhat fictionalized, in this piece:(http://www.geocities.com/mknemesis/omega.html)

If the underlying story about Tesla devices is true - and with most disinformation about 80% is real - the possibility that the Yakusa has obtained this technology throws an interesting light on the timing. Recall that Katrina struck just before VJ day, and has already been described as Hiroshima-like in its destructiveness.

Bush literally fiddled with his guitar while NOLA drowned. I watched him talk today and my skin crawled. How can anyone not see that this man is utterly soulless, an evil little gollum? I have an answer to that: evil calls to evil. Those who don't see him for what he is are like him. His eyes are windows to Hell, that fake folksiness only makes it more grisly, like the photos of Hitler showing people around Berchtesgaden, the host with the most. They showed a clip of Diane Sawyer interviewing Bush tomorrow on GMA, again those empty, stupid eyes, like a brain damaged monkey, utterly uncomprehending, searching for some moronic cliche.

At the Homeland Security news conference some of those fucking white male suits were actually GRINNING. What the fuck is FUNNY about the death of a city, people drowning in sewage, 5 dollar a gallon gas in Hotlanta?

Just caught an interview by Elizabeth Vargas, a reporter on ABC in Gulfport who unlike most reporters didn't seem robotic, she seemed angry and she flat out asked Michael Brown, head of FEMA why there was NO visible federal presence or rescue work--no National Guard, no FEMA, no Red Cross. He gave a mealymouth answer that made zero sense, she looked pissed and even disgusted afterward but didn't push it. She also did a segment on the economic impact for average people outside the Gulf area going forward; this afternoon I found stories about gas shortages in Georgia, the Carolinas and West Virginia, and skyrocketing prices in Kentucky where a 60 year old cousin from Cleveland had planned to drive this weekend to see her 80+ mother. I asked her to please reconsider: she could end up stranded with her dogs in the middle of nowhere.

I have to wonder what will become of the Superdome soon to be Astrodome people, it's already being called a 'refugee camp.' Will they just at some point be shipped off...somewhere...and disappear?

Check out the below link and the date it was made........ another bizarre coincidence among many of late:

New Orleans is Sinkingwww.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282151.html

BTW - from what I can ascertain damage to oil and gas production and refining infrastructure is FAR FAR worse than has been discussed in MSM. And believe me that no one in the oil and gas sector is happy about this.

Recommended Actions: Tank up your car and jerry cans. Buy some natural gas futures and oil and gas company stocks (ECA and CNQ would be good choices).

If O&G infrastructure nailed as hard as I'ver heard these will be probable Gov't Actions: Rationing of gasoline in short order, with rationing of natural gas this winter.

Fuck you and your overdramatizing. Nobody missed you in your absence, did they? Do normal non mentally unbalanced people 'melt down' over one post on a frickin' blog?

Except for you and Professor "Pan" who blabbered about "magick" and then got hysteroparanoid that I was calling him a Satanist, no one's ever had any problems with anything I said, at least not to the point of making a federal case out of it.

You're the one who went after ME personally, not vice versa, then you acted like the injured party; now you're back doing it again. I think you're a manipulative asshole.You can take your coercive group-hug-whether-you-want-one-or-not mentality and shove it.

Right before the hurricane made landfall, the weather channel, as well as CNN kept mentioning that "the US is the only country that still flies into hurricanes" for some reason.

Why the need to fly into hurricanes period now that there are advanced sattelites etc ?

As far as keeping the casualty #'s down and the reports of high casualties quiet, the government may have been lax in getting people out, and may have just shut down roads knowing people could still get out on them. I wouldn't put it past them.

sventhson says, "At the July 4th, 1976 Bicentennial protests in Philadelphia I watched as I marched as helicopters and small planes seeded the clouds for a torrential downpour."

Uh-well, if they did seed the clouds then, it didn't work. Actually, I and a good friend went on a group bus from Atlanta, GA. to Philadelphia to attend that protest. Thanks for bringing back some visual memories -- all of very nice weather. I clearly remember the long walking march through poor Philadlphia neighborhoods. I can recall at least one of the speakers at the rally and sitting on the grass. Also before we got on the bus to return to Atlanta, we were able to see quite fantastic fire works display over the city. I also remember a dinner at a great family Italian restaurant. But what I do know didn't happen is heavy rain! My memories are clear skies and a nice summer day.

Which doesn't mean I don't share concerns about weather manipulation. In the 1980s I used to read the Federal Register and NRC press releases, public reports, and by association was more aware of what the Federal government was doing then than I was in the 1990s. I recall tantalizing but obscure announcements of ionized particles being released into the upper atmosphere during tests conducted from the big Air Force on the Gulf near Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.

seventhson says, "At the July 4th, 1976 Bicentennial protests in Philadelphia I watched as I marched as helicopters and small planes seeded the clouds for a torrential downpour."

Uh-well, if they did seed the clouds then, it didn't work. Actually, I and a good friend went on a group bus from Atlanta, GA. to Philadelphia to attend that protest. Thanks for bringing back some visual memories -- all of very nice weather. I clearly remember the long walking march through poor Philadlphia neighborhoods. I can recall at least one of the speakers at the rally and sitting on the grass. Also before we got on the bus to return to Atlanta, we were able to see quite fantastic fireworks display over the city. I also remember a dinner at a great family Italian restaurant. There's no room in my memories for a forgotten thunderstorm which would have been very uncomfortable for hard-travelling Atlantans in Philadelphia! Fortunately, we had clear skies and a nice summer day -- tho I do remember feeling a bit lonely in America, I mean 'alienated' from GOP-Ford "America", on that day.

Which doesn't mean I don't share concerns about weather manipulation. In the 1980s I used to read the Federal Register and NRC press releases/reports. By associated attention, I was more aware of what the Federal government was doing then than in the 1990s. I recall tantalizing but obscure announcements of ionized particles being released into the upper atmosphere during tests conducted from the big Air Force base on the Gulf near Ft. Walton Beach, Fla.

ThomasJ said... Weather control...whatever. Fact is, for billions of years nature has been trimming the herd.

Excellent points made here, but may I submit that before we start dismissing "weather control" shall we not first define it. Shamans, north american aboriginals etc, have practiced some form of "weather control" through the ages example; rain dances, harvest ceremonies. Now were these folks successfull in say making it rain?? HMMMM I don't know. We skip ahead to the 19th century we have folks firing big old cannons at the sky trying to make it rain, the invention of lightning rods to stop the torching of buildings and such. Now in the 20th century we introduced cloud seeding. All these examples are evidence of attempted weather control. (I guess it's human nature to try and be in complete control of ones environment) So we have different cultures over the years attempting to control the weather with some or little success.(though lightning rods work pretty good). Now the official HAARP web page says specifically that: "It is important to realize that HAARP interacts only with charged (or ionized) particles in a limited region of the ionosphere directly over the facility. Interaction occurs because a charged particle (electron or positive ion) will react to an external electric field. HAARP does not interact with the neutral atoms and molecules that make up the bulk of the gas at all atmospheric heights."

"When the HAARP HF transmitter is shut down at the end of an experiment, any ionospheric effects rapidly dissipate, becoming imperceptible over time frames ranging from fractions of a second to minutes. Extensive research conducted over many years at other active ionospheric research facilities around the world has shown that there are no permanent or long term effects resulting from this research method." Well this looks pretty innocent enough so let's see what the un-official mission statement may be."For a time, HAARP researchers could not prove that this was one of the intended uses for HAARP. In April, 1995, however, Begich found other patents, connected with a "key personnel" list for APTI. Some of these new APTI patents were indeed a wireless system for sending electrical power. Eastlund's patent said the technology can confuse or completely disrupt airplanes' and missiles' sophisticated guidance systems. Further, this ability to spray large areas of Earth with electromagnetic waves of varying frequencies, and to control changes in those waves, makes it possible to knock out communications on land or sea as well as in the air.

This is what Eastlund patented:

"Thus, this invention provides the ability to put unprecedented amounts of power in the Earth's atmosphere at strategic locations and to maintain the power injection level particularly if random pulsing is employed, in a manner far more precise and better controlled than heretofore accomplished by the prior art, particularly by detonation of nuclear devices of various yields at various altitudes... ""...it is possible not only to interfere with third party communications but to take advantage of one or more such beams to carry out a communications network even though the rest of the world's communications are disrupted. Put another way, what is used to disrupt another's communications can be employed by one knowledgeable of this invention as a communication network at the same time.""... large regions of the atmosphere could be lifted to an unexpectedly high altitude so that missiles encounter unexpected and unplanned drag forces with resultant destruction.""Weather modification is possible by, for example, altering upper atmosphere wind patterns by constructing one or more plumes of atmospheric particles which will act as a lens or focusing device. ... molecular modifications of the atmosphere can take place so that positive environmental effects can be achieved. Besides actually changing the molecular composition of an atmospheric region, a particular molecule or molecules can be chosen for increased presence. For example, ozone, nitrogen, etc., concentrations in the atmosphere could be artificially increased."Begich found eleven other APTI Patents. They told how to make "Nuclear-sized Explosions without Radiation," Power-beaming systems, over-the-horizon radar, detection systems for missiles carrying nuclear warheads, electromagnetic pulses previously produced by thermonuclear weapons and other Star-Wars tricks. This cluster of patents underlay the HAARP weapon system."A lil more stuff.Ok now I am not some paranoid individual living in a cabin connected to the world with a coal burning computer and a helmet made of aluminum foil so the mothership can't detect me. I am a systems analyst with the gov of Canada(I know, Yikes)with wife, kids, and a cat. The fact that weird, hurricane anomalies (amongst other stuff) have been occurring over the past few years has as Jeff said raised a flag for me. Now is it good old fashioned weather or are folks playin" Macho science"Cheers,Lucky

""Uh-well, if they did seed the clouds then, it didn't work. Actually, I and a good friend went on a group bus from Atlanta, GA. to Philadelphia to attend that protest. Thanks for bringing back some visual memories -- all of very nice weather. I clearly remember the long walking march through poor Philadlphia neighborhoods. I can recall at least one of the speakers at the rally and sitting on the grass." "

My response to THAT:

Ah - well - the rain started like a mofo in a torrential downpour about 20 minutes after I saw what appeared to be a whitish cloud of material flowing out of either a helicopter or plane (there were several about).

The downpour washed out the rally completely with heavy lightning and flooded streets.

It did not last terribly long, but the speakers had to stop for danger of the lightning.

It HAD been a gorgeous sunny summer day with nary a cloud in the sky.

AIM led the march that day.

Clearly you were not at the asame rally, the main one, or you simply "have no room" for such a emory.

I came with a vanload of friends and we had to run for nearly a mile to get back to our vehicle and shelter.

For all who agree in the name of Jesus Christ, Let us stand on God's Word and Promise to our brothers and sisters in their time of distress:

Thank you Father God that Your Word is true, and your promises never fail and your mercy endures to all generations.

Thank you for fulfilling Your Word to the one's who are indistress and needing your salvation to be delivered from all evil and all danger. Psalm.18[1] I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.[2] The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.[3] I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.[4] The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.[5] The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.[6] In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.[7] Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.[8] There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.[9] He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet.[10] And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.[11] He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.[12] At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.[13] The LORD also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire.[14] Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.[15] Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O LORD, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.[16] He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.[17] He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.[18] They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the LORD was my stay.[19] He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.[20] The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me.[21] For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.[22] For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.[23] I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.[24] Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.[25] With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;[26] With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.[27] For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.[28] For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.[29] For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.[30] As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.[31] For who is God save the LORD? or who is a rock save our God?[32] It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.[33] He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.[34] He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.[35] Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.[36] Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.[37] I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.[38] I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.[39] For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.[40] Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.[41] They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.[42] Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.[43] Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.[44] As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.[45] The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.[46] The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.[47] It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people under me.[48] He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: thou hast delivered me from the violent man.[49] Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the heathen, and sing praises unto thy name.[50] Great deliverance giveth he to his king; and sheweth mercy to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.We agree in Jesus Name that this word and promise is now manifested on the earth, amen!

what the fuck is this religous crap? If I wanted to read this, I´d pick up a bible. What use was the bible to the people in New Orlean as they were being dragged to their deaths in a raging torrent of water ?

On Tuesday, checked the whitehouse.gov to find nothing about the [man-made environmental] natural catastrophe. Knowing of the NOLA bowel, wet land/coastal barrier destruction, pollution industries and problems in the Gulf (this years huge Dead Zone) -- I was afraid the levees would not hold and the floods would come even when the media said all was A-OK. Seeing the lack of concern at whitehouse.gov, I wondered: where is W -- is he reading a children's book to a goat?

If we'd spent half the energy on protecting our nest/environment as on the bogeymen of communism/terrorism our rulers would have done their jobs.

On another blog, someone wrote:

Category 4 Hurricane Determined to Strike in the United States of America.

What if someone proposed taking away the civil liberties of real estate developers who propose building on flood plains and barrier islands; industrialists who seek to promote industrial/chemical pollution; industrialists who manipulate the agricultural genome; industrial farmers who pollute the water with pesticide runoff and swine concentration camps. Those who give aid and comfort to them could have their homes and offices secretly invaded/searched by the FBI without warrant.

Absurd! But these are the real terrorists to America and the world -- even if their motives are only 'terminal greed'; they're willfully blind to their destruction.***thomasj seemed to dismiss the suffering people of the Gulf as deserving of being culled by Nature. But this was not a natural catastrophe. America seems to be headed off the cliff and the GOP/media are the Piedpipers of destruction. Will people please wake up now.***To those who cheerily, or bravely, claim NOLA will be restored -- the attraction of NOLA was its historic culture represented by a big stock of old buildings that can never be replaced. On the other hand protecting NOLA was technically feasible. Holland is much lower than the Atlantic Ocean and its efficient dykes have prevailed to date.

Presumably anyone interested has seen the Editor & Publisher summary history of W's diversion of funds from protecting NOLA to War in Iraq (and tax cuts for the rich) "Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" -- see it at http://tinyurl.com/bsttp

It has nothing to do with "deserving." The laws of nature and of the universe don't give a damn what you or I or anyone else deserve. If they did, W would have choked to death on that first pretzel or been struck by lightning or eaten by ants in Crawford. Within the context of our culture I find the neocon regime headed currently by Bush and Cheney as noxious as anyone else does. There are times (privately) when I foam at the mouth in completely irrational rage at the crimes from which they inevitably emerge scot-free. I am active politically, socially and personally in different ways to combat them and the plutocracy for which they stand. (I realize, of course, that the owner of this blogspot would not deign to dirty his lily-white magickal hand with anything as futile and mundane as "politics.") But do I believe that Bush/Cheney through either cloud seeding, "power injections" into the atmosphere or "magickal" (oooh...spooky) means directed a class 5 hurricane at the gulf coast? Jesus, I know it's difficult for some people to accept that part of life's job is to kill you; I know it is deliciously engaging (in a socially stunted, Dungeons and Dragons kind of way) to find nefarious influence in natural phenomena (Did you hear? There's evil Ents in Texas!!! Stop them with orgonite!!!), but it's not the same as letting swine flu be blown by the wind, or the same as cloud seeding (which requires existing clouds, of course, ie: moisture already in the air). There is enough real, practical and incredibly difficult work to do to make our many different lives and cultures sustainable and even harmonic. Go spike trees and recycle and, to quote Edward Abbey, "Pull up fence wherever you find it." Keep digging (as I do) into real ways in which our government is giving it to us hard and fast up the ass (no offense, of course, to those folks who kindly give it to each other hard and fast up the ass). There is enough to do, more than enough, without tracing pentagrams into the eye of a hurricane.

One, some of us have been controlling or at least noticeably affecting the weather in our areas in a necessarily positive way for several years using over fifty year-old technology (arguably far, far older than that, in fact) in a modern application called a chembuster, which naturally and continuously balances the energy between earth and sky, causing chemtrails and HAARP clouds to dissipate and causing rain to fall precipitously as necessary to balance any regional drought conditions. Some have also been quite successful at mitigating tornadoes and hurricanes using chembusters too. Please, I urge everyone to at least look at this material, and to try it for yourself if you can afford the roughly $150 in new materials cost (if you can't find any of it second-hand) to actually construct one or $390 to buy a chembuster ready to go.

My second point concerns the previous post by Anonymous at 8:30 PM:

in 2004, Lousiana voted for Bush anyway, who earned a huge majority of 57% to 42% for Kerry!

Should we really care about people who don't even care for themselves?

Excuse me, they in fact stole the fucking election. Both of them. Don't blame the citizens standing in line for hours (obviously to vote for the status quo, right?) or being told they couldn't vote or would be arrested if they tried by lizards in suits who had no fucking right to tell them that shit.

"What the f--k is this religious crap? If I wanted to read this, I´d pick up a Bible. What use was the Bible to the people in New Orleans as they were being dragged to their deaths in a raging torrent of water?"

Do you think your atheism would have helped them either? What use would this "there is no God" crap have done to ease the sufferings of the victims of Katrina? NONE! Cuts both ways, neighbor.

"I don't see Jehovah hauling those people out of the ruins of NOLA and I didn't see Allah saving the pilgrims being crushed in Baghdad.

If there is a God He's damn selective about His miracles. I guess babies dying of dehydration doesn't melt His heart, maybe He's too busy watching those sparrows fall."

Then you truly don't know God. For He will never violate anyone's free will if they choose to screw up things, like our government did when they funnelled money that was suppossed to go to prepare NOLA for something like Katrina, and instead sent it to the illegal war in Iraq.

And more often than not, God works through secondary causes, whether by nature or people. You want to see Him hauling folks out of the NOLA ruins? He's doing it through the folks in the Salvation Army and Catholic and Mennonite charities and others rushing aid to NOLA, no thanks to the stupid government.

So instead of complaining why God didn't fix things in NOLA, why don't you go down there with volunteers and help with the cleanup? You would then be God's hands to those poor suffering folks. Perhaps you may perceive things differently.

Advocating atheism in the face of this is useless and infantile. Helping those folks survive and carry on isn't.

Maybe they are trying to say, that we are trapped by our beliefs .People should believe in themselves and no some cultural rumour of a cosmic architect, and concentrate on the task at hand... survival.

Bush/Cheney through either cloud seeding, "power injections" into the atmosphere or "magickal" (oooh...spooky) means directed a class 5 hurricane at the gulf coast?Look it is a bit of a leap regarding the weather control piece and I am certainly not saying bush/cheneyin a cloud of purple smoke, pointed their wands and directed that hurricane over New Orleans, however the fact that HAARP is a real entity and the man that designed it said weather control is possible, does provide food for thought.Bottom line the situation down there is a disgrace.Lucky

"So instead of complaining why God didn't fix things in NOLA, why don't you go down there with volunteers and help with the cleanup? You would then be God's hands to those poor suffering folks. Perhaps you may perceive things differently."

Correct, maybe your perception would be turned into realization that now you ALSO ARE FUCKED, since you're there - stuck without rescue. What if your vehicle gets stuck, or runs out of gas (ohhhh... GOD forbid), what if you get hurt trying to help those who are hurt?Then you could "see things differently"

The fact that Professor Pan and I were the only ones who called you out about what bugged us doesn't mean nobody else thought it, too.

I said in my post that I hoped I was wrong about you - that is, of thinking you were more interested in personally criticizing others than in productive dialogue. It may surprise you, but I still hope that I was wrong about you. From what I've seen lately, you've posted some good stuff here, and I would be remiss in not recognizing your contributions. That's about as generous as I can be where you are concerned.

Of course, I regret my meltdown, which was as much do to other influences in my life as whatever was going on here. Stress happens, and sometimes, we blow. It's usually the straw rather than the boulder that breaks the camel's back. It's about frustration.

The larger point I was making then, in my oh-so-dramatic fashion, is that we would all be better off if we showed less concern about the petty stuff and more concerned about organizing and getting Bush out of office.

Indeed, the reason I've returned is because I've realized just how important it was to shake off the annoyances, and say, whatever. Some people are just - that way.

Finally, thanks to you, I'm getting used to confrontation. I hardly blinked an eye when I read your "fuck you" post. Probably, it's something I had to learn how to face, and to process, like most unpleasant things in life. I am a work in progress, after all, like most human beings. No shame in that. At least I can admit it.

"Ironically, in a metaphoric sense, humans don't have the good sense to disregard their own feces. We have wallowed in it for the entirety of our tainted presence here on Planet Earth, and I'm certain, when it's all said and done, we will suffocate in it as a species."

It's interesting that you ignore a wondrous three million years of human history in favor of the worst ten thousand of it, which amounts to about .8% of our stay.

Anonymous said:

"By rank stupidity I was referring to the the human habit of fowling our nest, in this case, with industrial emmissions and pollution leading to global warming."

How long have humans been doing this, now?

Luckycanucky says,

"I guess it's human nature to try and be in complete control of ones environment"

Again, this stems from a very recent change in mentality that doesn't affect the entire species. This drive to dominate everything is a cultural creation, not a biological imperative. If it was, we'd see it in every tribal society we run into. As it is, we only see it in tribal societies that have come into contact with civilization.

Going back to Shrub:

"Nope, humans will step in their own shit, repeatedly. It's as though we're programmed."

To this I will heartily agree, as long as the word 'civilized' precedes 'humans' and 'It's as though' is replaced with 'After all.'

And you're right, though I'm not one for glossing over important differences to get to the group hug, I think at this point everyone who has a brain and a heart needs to pull together. I think it was Ben Franklin who said "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.

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